


A Partridge in a Pear Tree

by hollycomb



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:08:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back on Earth after a tragedy, Chekov gets fixated on Christmas, and Sulu plays along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Partridge in a Pear Tree

  
When Pavel is thirty-five years old, his team is ambushed during what was advertised as a peaceful mission. He is the only survivor, minus one arm, his left. Hikaru does not leave his side in med bay until the replacement is finished growing, only letting go of Pavel's remaining hand when he has to leave for the bathroom or to fetch Pavel some specially requested food. He does not make Pavel talk about it, just stays close, even throughout the surgery, McCoy working on the other side of a little curtain that runs from what remains of Pavel's left shoulder and cuts a diagonal line across his chest. Pavel tries to think only about how the first thing he'll touch with his new hand will be Hikaru's face as he listens to the whir of McCoy's instruments and smells what might be burning flesh. When he flinches at the faint hint of sensation, Hikaru starts to shoot up from his chair, but Pavel shakes his head.  
  
"I don't want to do this anymore," Hikaru says when he sits back down, his lips close to Pavel's ear. Pavel smiles tearfully, nods. He's wanted to say that for the past week, has wanted to go home ever since he saw his arm between the teeth of a creature twice his size, but he didn't want to be the one responsible for ending their careers as soldiers. Hikaru has been going without sleep since Pavel was injured, desperate to always be there, giving him everything he needs, and this is what Pavel needs more than anything: Hikaru saying that he's the one who wants to go, willing to pretend that it's his decision. Pavel believes, at least, that Hikaru wants to take him away from here.  
  
An hour later Pavel is touching Hikaru's face, holding it in two hands.  
  
"Is it different?" Hikaru asks. They're in the bed together, resting, the lights in sick bay down low.  
  
"A little different," Pavel says, moving his new fingers. "It's not the hand I used to touch you, that first time."  
  
Hikaru takes Pavel's hands and curls them into loose fists inside his own. He kisses both of them, showing no preference for one or the other. They haven't yet talked about the others who were on the mission, the ones who died while Pavel watched. Eaten. Pavel closes his eyes and ducks his head down under Hikaru's chin.  
  
"We'll leave tomorrow," Hikaru says, holding him, both of Pavel's arms tucked against his chest. "I'll pack tonight."  
  
Pavel thinks of all the things that he could say, his eyes closed against the steady drum of Hikaru's pulse. He could insist that he'll be fine after a little counseling, that he's still suffering from the initial shock, that he's too old and intelligent and professional to react this way. He could refuse Hikaru's offer of such a grand gesture, the understanding that not only will Pavel have to retire from active duty but that Hikaru will of course return to Earth along with him. It's not as if they're married.  
  
"Okay," Pavel says, softly, and Hikaru kisses his hair.  
  
*  
  
The sky on Earth is too blue. Pavel could have done with a cloudy day as a milder transition back to this particular environment. They're in America, California, Hikaru's childhood home and Pavel's favorite place on Earth, far away from Uglich. California is the site of many cherished memories from Pavel's time spent at the Academy, both in the city and outside of it, where there are rolling hills and giant trees, the coast and the desert not too far apart. Pavel didn't know Hikaru when he was at the Academy, discovering California, but he had seen him from afar. He still remembers the first time they smiled at each other with faint recognition when they crossed paths on campus. Hikaru had always seemed just a bit brighter than everyone else.  
  
Kirk has arranged for teaching positions at the Academy. Pavel is not ready for that yet, but he suspects that he could be after the two months of leave that he has also been granted. He'll teach Physics. It's something he might have wanted to do anyway, but the fact that he's been driven to it by a thing with teeth as long as the forearm that it bit off makes him feel like he's running away.  
  
The nightmares are horrible. Hikaru is always there, his _shh, baby, it's okay_ accessing ancient memories of Pavel's mother that he didn't know he had.  
  
It's December, and the Christmas music in the stores makes Pavel oddly happy, like cheerful laughter from a child's birthday party in the yard next door. He buys candy canes at the store, and Hikaru laughs when Pavel brings them home. They're renting a house not far from Mendocino National Forrest, where Hikaru has a special scientist pass for research. The house is small and dust-clogged, but Hikaru already has the backyard mostly in order, bags of mulch stacked up on the small stone patio.  
  
"We should get a Christmas tree," Pavel says. He's sucking on a candy cane, cross-legged on the patio as he watches Hikaru plant what might someday become an apple tree. Winter is the right time for putting fruit-bearing trees in the ground. It's cold out, but Pavel is in sock feet, wearing jeans and one of Hikaru's fleece sweatshirts. It's much too big for him, and he feels cozy inside it, protected.  
  
"Are you serious?" Hikaru asks. "You want a Christmas tree?"  
  
"Yes. Didn't you have one as a boy?"  
  
"Well -- yeah." Hikaru is on his knees in the garden, a trowel in his hand, dirt on his pants. "But you --"  
  
"Jews can have Christmas trees if they want," Pavel says. "Can't they?"  
  
"Sure." Hikaru stands and scratches his head, probably getting dirt in his hair. Pavel will have to bathe him thoroughly once they go inside. They have a tub big enough for the two of them, the little house's one luxury. Pavel smiles up at him, thinking of Hikaru at the Academy, how he would have laughed at the idea of himself as a gardener.  
  
"You look happy," Hikaru says, smiling back, sounding surprised.  
  
"I am," Pavel says. It's true; happiness is not the problem so much as hauntedness is. "But a Christmas tree would make me happier."  
  
They get one that afternoon, Hikaru still a little dirt-stained, and sap-stained after wrangling the tree into its stand. It's a Douglas Fir, six feet tall and fluffy. Pavel can't stop sniffing it.  
  
"Do you make the decorations yourself, or --?" Pavel says, bouncing a little in his sock feet as Hikaru stands back and checks again to make sure that the tree is perfectly straight.  
  
"You really don't know anything about this, do you?" Hikaru asks, and Pavel is a little offended, because no he doesn't, but Hikaru looks charmed.  
  
"I know some things," Pavel says. "The basics. You string popcorn, don't you?"  
  
"Only in very old movies," Hikaru says. "We'll go out tonight and get some balls and stuff."  
  
They end up getting a lot more than that, maybe because of the whipped-cream topped coffees they get on the way into the store. It's normally a sort of convenience-grocery store but has been transformed almost entirely into a Christmas store for the month of December. The tree itself needs so many accessories: a skirt to catch its needles, lights, tinsel, ornaments, a topper (Pavel chooses an angel, for the sake of being as hilariously ironic as possible), a garland of plastic cranberries. As he moves through the red and green aisles he also collects several wreathes, place mats, napkins, candles, candle holders, window stickers, stockings, and cinnamon-scented air fresheners. Pavel doesn't know what has come over him. Suddenly all of this stuff looks not only great but necessary.  
  
"So that was interesting," Hikaru says when they're in the car on the way home, the backseat loaded with bags.  
  
"It was," Pavel agrees. He's still smiling, more widely now, and Hikaru is, too.  
  
At home, they both get right to work. Pavel has needed a very low key project to devote his energy to since the accident, and this seems to be it. Hikaru, who could be working in his garden, assists with silent diligence. He works mostly in lights, while Pavel hangs ornaments and arranges trimmed tree branches on the mantle. In the process of decorating, he cleans. The place starts to look like the kind of home he fantasized about as a child: cheerful, orderly, managing coziness without being snow-covered. The sun is going down by the time they're finished, wind whistling through the trees outside.  
  
"Should we light the candles?" Hikaru asks, coming up behind Pavel as he admires their handiwork. He rests his hands on Pavel's hips, his chin on Pavel's shoulder. "Bake cookies or something?"  
  
"You need a bath," Pavel says. He's been thinking about it all day. It's a brand new thing they can do together, now that they're on Earth. There were tubs in some of the hotels they stayed at during shore leave in space, but lounging in them was never something Pavel was interested in. He'd take a fuck up against the wall of the shower before a lazy stroke off under the water, back then. Now he loves the feeling of Hikaru's breath pushing against his back, his legs open around Pavel's body, arms snug across his chest. He loves the time they're able to take, everything slowed down and warm, and the way Hikaru moans so low when Pavel arches.  
  
The bathroom is the only room in the house that hasn't been Christmas-ized, and as Hikaru washes his back Pavel considers putting some clippings from the tree along the back of the sink. They've got the lights turned down, candles lit, darkness falling fast outside.  
  
"Am I reverting to a state of childlike dependency?" Pavel asks as Hikaru massages shampoo into his curls. "I read on one of those PTSD boards that it can happen."  
  
"I don't think you are," Hikaru says after a moment of consideration. He sounds a little wounded, and Pavel smiles; Hikaru has been enjoying this, a little, maybe, more license to take care of him than he's ever had before.  
  
"I mean," Hikaru says. "You made me eggs this morning."  
  
"True." Pavel closes his eyes while Hikaru rinses the soap out. The images of what happened on Rehk still play there, always behind his eyelids, and the sounds get louder when his eyes are closed: Lieutenant Datchmar's tricorder crunching between the teeth of those monsters, louder than her bones.  
  
"What's wrong?" Hikaru asks, kneading Pavel's shoulders. "Soap in your eye?"  
  
"Yes," Pavel says, and he rubs both eyes clear. The doctors who visited him in med bay warned him that the survivor's guilt could last for years, or forever. But it will not always be so crippling, they said. Pavel's problem, his guilt, is that he doesn't feel crippled enough. He reaches back to touch Hikaru, cupping Hikaru's ear in left hand.  
  
"I feel like I'm dreaming," he says.  
  
"Want me to pinch you as a test?" Hikaru asks. He goes for Pavel's nipples, pinching both at the same time. Pavel laughs and squirms, water sloshing over the edge of the tub. They end up in the bed, wet, and sleep through dinner time. When Hikaru rouses Pavel to eat something it's late, the lights on the Christmas tree glowing like a party they forgot they were having. Hikaru makes a fire and Pavel lights candles. They have instant oatmeal for dinner, sitting on the floor by the hearth.  
  
"So what do you want for Christmas?" Hikaru asks.  
  
"Something very traditional," Pavel says.  
  
"Sleigh bells, then," Hikaru says. "Or stockings? Sugar plums? It's been a long time since I listened to the songs."  
  
"Ah -- yes, this is what we're missing! The songs!"  
  
Hikaru calls some of the Christmas songs he listened to as a child up on his PADD and sets it to broadcast. He turns the volume down low and pulls Pavel onto the couch, his hand sliding up under Pavel's t-shirt and across his chest.  
  
"Let's sleep out here," Pavel says as Hikaru begins to undress him properly, pulling a blanket over them to fight the chill that creeps in through the house's thin windows. "With the tree, and the fire."  
  
"Fine by me," Hikaru says. He pauses while kissing Pavel's neck and leans up onto his elbows, touching their noses together. "You okay?" he asks.  
  
Pavel considers the question seriously, not wanting to give Hikaru an inaccurate answer. He's okay as long as his eyes are open, as long as he's surrounded by twinkling lights and greenery, everything a little surreal. He's okay as long as he can spend the whole afternoon watching Hikaru in the garden, helping sometimes with the mulching.  
  
"Yes," Pavel says. "Or, mostly."  
  
They have sex, again, on the couch this time, under the blanket. They've been having a lot of sex since they returned to Earth, as if they've gone back in time to their Academy days, the teenage years that they missed out on spending together the first time around. Hikaru is sometimes too gentle, but tonight Pavel wants that, in the presence of the Christmas tree. He whimpers every time Hikaru slides back in, because he knows Hikaru likes that, and because it feels good to whimper, actually, lately.  
  
"Baby," Hikaru whispers, shaking a little, holding Pavel's face against his as he fucks him. "I just -- you're so --"  
  
"I know, Hikaru." Pavel kisses his face to calm him down. "It's okay." Only once did Hikaru cry during sex, that first time that they did it after the accident. It was their first night on Earth, the house still mostly empty. The sex itself was not good, both of them too nervous, and Hikaru's tears had terrified Pavel.  
  
They've been together for eighteen years. Their relationship is finally a legal adult, which was more than Pavel could have said for himself when he first kissed Hikaru. They were brushing their teeth when it happened, in the morning, close to being late for their shift. Hikaru had again fallen asleep in Pavel's bed after a long night of talking and card games. Pavel was half-asleep, and Hikaru caught him staring at him in the mirror as he wiped his mouth with a towel. He put the towel down, checked to make sure Pavel was still staring, dragged him close and kissed him. The smell of toothpaste will always make Pavel think of the long sigh Hikaru pushed into his mouth that morning, and the surprising heat of his hands when he cupped Pavel's face.  
  
That first Christmas, they do everything. Cookies, presents, a roast turkey that Pavel watches Hikaru stuff in the traditional manner, cringing. Two of Hikaru's sisters come over for dinner with their husbands and children, and everyone remarks on how good the house looks. Pavel tries to make them appreciate the garden as well, but they just laugh and say that Hikaru always was weird about plants. Nobody mentions the reason that they're back on Earth, but Pavel catches Hikaru's eldest nephew staring at his hands while he passes out rolls, as if he's trying to remember which of them is the original.  
  
"That was fun," Hikaru says when his family has gone. They're in the kitchen, Hikaru washing dishes and Pavel sitting on the counter as he dries them, drinking egg nog.  
  
"Yes," Pavel says, though he found it a little exhausting. Hikaru's family likes him, and always has. They seem to have been instructed not to ask about Pavel's family. "Your parents are off planet?"  
  
"Yeah, visiting my sister on Titan. I called them. Your -- your dad --"  
  
"He does not observe Christmas."  
  
"I know, but, ah. Does he know you're back?"  
  
Pavel shrugs. He's surprised that Hikaru needs to ask. Hikaru turns off the water, dries his hands and leaves the last few dishes in the sink. He takes the bowl Pavel is drying and puts it aside, settling between Pavel's legs.  
  
"It's always good to see them," Hikaru says. "But you're my family now. You know that -- right?"  
  
"Don't apologize for not marrying me," Pavel says. "You know how I feel about that."  
  
"Yeah -- I. You don't like traditions, or ceremony. Which, uh. Made me kind of surprised that you got so into Christmas."  
  
Pavel hates it when Hikaru gets like this, with the stammering and the _uh_ s. It seems passive aggressive. He slides off the counter and tries to squirm away, but Hikaru holds him and pins him in place, aggressive-aggressive, which Pavel prefers.  
  
"It's not that I don't like those things, really," Pavel says. "I just never saw that I had any place in them. They seemed to be things for other people, not for me. But I don't care about marriage and I know you're my family. Can I go brush my teeth now? They're all sugar-coated."  
  
Hikaru releases him, and Pavel can hear him taking up the dishes again as he walks into the dark bedroom. There are white Christmas lights strung across the foot board of the bed, glowing in the room like another secret party. Pavel remembers the faculty parties his father attended always seeming very far away, until suddenly they were over and his father was laughing in the hallway outside of Pavel's bedroom, speaking Standard with an equally drunk woman who would sometimes be gone before Pavel left his bedroom in the morning and would sometimes appear at the breakfast table, makeup smeared under her eyes. Pavel taught himself Standard so that he could translate the conversations they thought he couldn't understand. This was how it was eventually revealed that Pavel was secretly a genius: he announced one morning over bagels that his father's fears that his date's moans had been overheard by _the boy_ were founded.  
  
Pavel is still awake when Hikaru comes into the bedroom, and he's glad when Hikaru climbs into bed without unplugging the lights. He pushes back against Hikaru when he spoons up behind him, and they lie there for awhile, Pavel feeling as if they're waiting for something to happen. It's almost midnight, and Pavel feels panicked at the thought that Christmas will be over soon.  
  
"Did your parents tell you lies about Santa?" Pavel asks. "When you were a boy?"  
  
"Lies isn't the right word," Hikaru says.  
  
"What would be the point of telling my father that I'm home?" Pavel asks, because they are, of course, still having this conversation.  
  
"You could tell him what happened," Hikaru says. "I know you're not close, but it seems like the kind of thing he'd like to know about."  
  
"Why do I care what he would like? I wouldn't want him making a fuss over it, that would be phony. I know it's hard for you to understand, but I don't need him. That part of my life is done."  
  
Hikaru doesn't say anything, just presses kisses along Pavel's hair line and tugs him closer, holding him against his chest. Pavel closes his eyes, what happened on Rehk flashing through his mind. Every memory of it feels like another ambush. His father would pretend to mourn for the arm Pavel was born with, then would say smug things about how he'd wasted his intellect playing at being a soldier. _A childish overcompensation for your smallness_. Pavel feels as if those words are written on the headstone that waits for him at the end of his life, and that everything he does, his whole existence, is only an effort to erase them.  
  
He doesn't want his father to know that he was hurt, and more than that he doesn't want him to find out that Pavel was the only survivor. It's the most spectacular failure a soldier can have, to be the only survivor, and it makes his father right about everything.  
  
"Let's do something crazy," Pavel says. "Before Christmas is over."  
  
"Like what?" Hikaru asks. He presses the soft bulge of his cock against Pavel's ass.  
  
"I don't know -- what did you do late at night on Christmas, as a child?"  
  
"Slept, mostly. I was usually in a sugar coma by nightfall."  
  
"We could eat a lot of sugar."  
  
"I already brushed my teeth." Hikaru turns Pavel onto his back, gently. He looks concerned. Pavel's heart is racing. He's experienced an untouchable kind of safety in the past weeks, with all of these decorations crowded around him. The thought of taking them down makes his chest feel tight.  
  
"I keep thinking you might want to go back," Pavel says. Hikaru shakes his head.  
  
"I don't."  
  
"You don't miss it?"  
  
"No. Not yet. This still feels a little like a vacation. I'm sure I'll miss things, Pavel, and you will, too, but that's not the point. I want to be with you, wherever you are. You're more important to me than anything in the universe, more important than the damn universe itself. Will you have accepted that after another eighteen years?"  
  
"Maybe," Pavel says. He pulls Hikaru down and hides under the weight of him. "I don't think I could go back," he says. "If you decided to, I don't think I could follow you. Just the thought of being in a shuttle makes me feel sick."  
  
Pavel was in a shuttle on the way back to the _Enterprise_ , alone, blood everywhere, one-armed, Kirk on the screen asking him what the hell had happened.  
  
"You don't have to worry about that," Hikaru says. He tucks his face to Pavel's neck and breathes in deep. "When they thought -- they were saying you lost too much blood -- I wouldn't want to be up there without you, and I won't leave you alone down here."  
  
The crazy thing they do to mark the end of Christmas is sex, the lights still glowing at the end of the bed as the headboard taps the wall in time with Hikaru's thrusts. He's gentle at first, only fucking Pavel harder when he whines and arches and begs. Hikaru is so vulnerable when he comes, and Pavel lives for the moment when the tension spills from Hikaru and he gets limp and heavy, panting. Pavel pets him while he recovers, thinking of the first time Hikaru asked him to marry him. They were on a beach with black sand, resting after a mission, waiting for Kirk to emerge from negotiations of some kind. It was a long time ago.  
  
"We should get married," Hikaru said. He wasn't looking at Pavel but out at the horizon, smiling slightly. It had seemed, at the time, like he was joking.  
  
"Why?" Pavel asked.  
  
"For the heck of it," Hikaru said. He looked at Pavel then, and seemed suddenly afraid. Pavel had naturally assumed that Hikaru was afraid that Pavel would think he had been serious, so he laughed and launched into his monologue about rejecting tradition and ceremony. Hikaru had still asked him to marry him again, years later and much more gravely, and then once as a way to end an argument, and again, for the last time, as a way to begin one.  
  
Pavel is afraid to fall asleep, and Hikaru seems to sense this. They pet each other inside a nest of blankets, Pavel using one finger to trace the outline of Hikaru's lips and the line of his nose.  
  
“I've kept you from reaching your potential in so many ways,” Pavel says, in Russian, whispering. Somehow he knew it would come to this: the two of them alone in a cottage on the edge of a foreboding wood, Hikaru tripping over himself to keep Pavel happy, always afraid that one crack in Pavel's delicate exterior will split him in half.  
  
“What?” Hikaru says, pressing his face to Pavel's. In eighteen years, Hikaru has learned little more than _da_ , _nyet_ , and a few Russian curses that Pavel favors during sex.  
  
“I said thank you for making me happy,” Pavel says. “For doing – all of this – for me.”  
  
“All of what, Pavel?” Hikaru says, looking so distressed in the Christmas-light glow that Pavel wants to laugh this away like it's another marriage proposal. “You think I'm here as some kind of – favor to you? Don't you know you make me happy, too?”  
  
“But,” Pavel says. He can't get the other words out: _I'm broken_. He doesn't know how to tell Hikaru that he'll never be the same. The new arm feels like something that he's only borrowing, a medal of honor that he hasn't earned.  
  
“You don't understand,” Hikaru says. “And I've never figured out how to make you understand – I've failed you, in that sense –”  
  
“Hikaru, no –!” The idea that Hikaru could ever consider himself a failure in any sense, and especially when it comes to how he's treated Pavel, is like being dashed against rocks. Hikaru leans up over Pavel, on his elbows and knees, letting Pavel shrink into the safe place that exists only here, under the shelter of Hikaru's body.  
  
“We thought you would die,” Hikaru says, his eyes burning down into Pavel's, soft but so dark. “There were hours when you were critical. Hours.”  
  
“I know, I'm sorry –”  
  
“God, Pavel, don't be sorry! That's what I'm telling you, what I keep trying to tell you – don't ever be sorry for meaning so much to me that I can't breathe without you. You're my life, you are, and you can't fucking apologize to me for that. I won't let you. You've made my life better and more than it ever could have been without you.”  
  
Once Pavel gets to the point of trying not to cry, it's always too late. He realizes only when the first sobs break out of him that he hasn't cried, not really, since everything that happened, not even after the nightmares. Hikaru shushes him and kisses his cheeks, his skin so warm as he hovers over Pavel and presses down onto him, somehow more naked than he's ever been before, calling Pavel _baby, baby, baby_.  
  
*  
  
They pack away the Christmas things five days later, taping them into boxes that go into the attic. Hikaru props the tree up at the back of the yard so that Pavel can still see it from the kitchen window. Its needles turn rusty brown after a few weeks, but Pavel still thinks it's lovely as native vines grow over its branches, twisting it into the landscape of the yard and hiding it completely by spring.  
  
*  
  
Once it becomes acceptable to laugh at them again, friends and family tease them for their tendency to go overboard at Christmas. Hikaru special orders their Christmas trees – Siberian pines from Russia, for Pavel – and puts them under the tallest part of the sloped living room ceiling, ten feet tall and majestic. Pavel puts lights everywhere, still managing, he thinks, to keep the overall look rather classy. They have a big party every year that lasts from Christmas Eve and on through Christmas afternoon, more nieces and nephews supplied by Hikaru's sisters every year, wrapping paper littering the floor around the tree like multi-colored snow. When Kirk or Gaila or any other of their friends from the _Enterprise_ years are on Earth for the holidays the party will stretch all the way until New Year's Eve, Christmas lights glowing around the clock, Hikaru and Pavel moving from the oven to the kitchen sink with military efficiency, insisting that they don't need help with the washing up, unwilling to offer anyone a cameo in their carefully choreographed domestic dance.  
  
Outside of the holiday season, life is less garishly decorated and so calm that Pavel sometimes forgets that they lived any other way. He loves teaching, finally allowed to be the oldest person in the room. His students' admiration repairs his battered confidence, and their eyes go wide with amazement when he tells them the story of the arm that he lost. Hikaru has whole classrooms full of the adoring sons and daughters that he was only ever halfway sure he wanted, and he takes his fencing club on trips to Titan and Japan for tournaments, Pavel tagging along if he can escape his research work for a week or two. They both have favorite students, and boast to each other about their favorites' accomplishments like competitive parents at a football match.  
  
Hikaru brings home designer eggplants and avocados from the advanced nutrition lab, but Pavel prefers the humbler produce from their yard, hard little apples and skinny carrots that he helped Hikaru raise. They have a Japanese plum and a Bradford pear that has never borne fruit but looks beautiful in the spring. Hikaru talks about raising their own Christmas trees, and Pavel wonders if they could do so as a side business after retirement. He's only forty-one years old, Hikaru forty-five, and they've got a long time to think about it.  
  
Sometimes Pavel has nightmares and wakes up clutching at his arm. He still hasn't spoken to his father since returning to Earth six years ago. He misses flying the ship with Hikaru and beaming down to mostly untouched moons, the bustle of space stations and the weight of his phaser. He drinks a little too much vodka and can't run nearly as fast as he used to, but he has Hikaru, and weekend mornings in the garden, long nights in the bed with the lights that they never took down from the footboard, and many good memories of their days in space, almost enough to outweigh that one very bad one.  
  
They have a legacy in space, in Starfleet, certain maneuvers that they invented and feats that haven't been duplicated. Pavel is proud of this until it comes back to bite him in the ass.  
  
“I wouldn't ask if I wasn't sure that nobody else could get the job done,” Kirk says.  
  
He's in their kitchen, back on Earth just for this, to personally ask Hikaru to fly him through a war zone to reach an embassy checkpoint in a last ditch attempt to prevent a devastating battle that could involve the use of planet-destroying technology. Hikaru and Pavel are on the other side of the bar that looks into the kitchen, holding untouched cups of tea.  
  
“Jim,” Hikaru says after a long pause. “I can't – it's been –”  
  
“It's just like the pass at Yrug-5, Hikaru, you've flown this with me before,” Kirk says. “I know it's a lot to ask, and believe me, I wouldn't be putting this on you if I didn't think you were the only pilot for the job. The amount of lives at stake – I can't even begin to tell you –”  
  
“How long?” Hikaru asks. He glances at Pavel, who feels as if he's woken from the dream that began when he lost his arm. There's a starkness to the world when Jim Kirk is nearby, like being just outside the circle of the spotlight that the universe has thrown on him.  
  
“It's hard to say,” Kirk says. “We'd leave tomorrow, and the trip there will take a few days, there will be another week of planning, strategy, then the trip to the base should take less than a day. The time consuming part will be the negotiations, but that'll be on me. You can relax while I'm sweating it out – Pavel, you could come, too, the navigation itself could get tricky –”  
  
“I can't,” Pavel says. He wasn't sure until he said so, his stomach contracting. “I can't come.”  
  
“Oh – well.” Kirk looks at Hikaru. He still has a fatherly sort of air when it comes to the two of them, as if he's sorry to have to ask this but proud to know that Hikaru at least is capable of it. “Well,” Kirk says. He puts his hands around his tea cup, which is still steaming. “I could have an order put in, but I won't. I'm leaving it up to you.”  
  
“You know I'll come,” Hikaru says. His eyes slide to Pavel's, and Pavel realizes then that Hikaru is telling this to him, not Kirk. Pavel did know. He knew as soon as he saw Kirk standing at the front door, just like he did when that thing's jaws closed around his arm six years ago, the last time he stood on alien soil. Having learned, he'd braced himself, and still he finds himself unprepared for what's about to be yanked clear away.  
  
Kirk doesn't prolong his visit; he knows they'll need time alone. Hikaru is to meet him at the transport station in San Francisco tomorrow morning. The house is quiet as they listen to Kirk's car crunching over the gravel at the end of the driveway and accelerating down the road. Kirk is old-fashioned only in one sense: he likes wheels.  
  
“I'm not doing this because I want to,” is the first thing Hikaru says when the quiet settles too firmly.  
  
It didn't even occur to Pavel that this might be part of the reason Hikaru is going, but now that Hikaru has preemptively denied it, he's sure that it is. Pavel laughs a little, and Hikaru takes him by the shoulders.  
  
“Say something,” Hikaru commands, shaking him once. “Don't just stand there hating me.”  
  
“It's the twelfth of November,” Pavel says. Hikaru frowns, and Pavel can see him shuffling through anniversary dates. This isn't one of them.  
  
“So?” he says.  
  
“Nothing,” Pavel says, too embarrassed to admit that he's worried Hikaru might not be back in time for Christmas. At the end of every year it has been a thing for Pavel to retreat into, a safe place full of familiar things, the brown boxes that come down from the attic always opening to reveal the same treasures, charms that had seemed to protect him when he needed it most. All along, he's known that those red and green baubles don't really mean anything, that what protected him then was Hikaru, and he's not sure he can lay eyes on those boxes or get through that month without Hikaru at his side.  
  
He won't think about the fact that Hikaru might die in some faraway culture's war, he'll worry that he might miss Christmas.  
  
Things are tense that night, dinner tasteless on Pavel's tongue. Hikaru sighs a lot, and packs a small bag. He keeps touching Pavel, little apologies pressed to the small of his back or wrapped around his elbow. Finally, when Pavel is in the bathroom brushing his teeth, Hikaru comes up behind him and presses hard, hungry kisses to the side of his neck, holding Pavel's hips, his breath coming fast.  
  
“Please,” Hikaru says, his voice shaking, eyes closed against Pavel's cheek. “Please, before I go.”  
  
As if Pavel doesn't need this just as badly: they're tearing at each other's clothes even as they drop to the bed, zippers coming down in mid-fall. Pavel feels like he's still falling as Hikaru's hands push up under his sweater, thumbs rough on his nipples. He arches, pressing the most vulnerable part of his neck more firmly into Hikaru's hot mouth. One of Hikaru's hands moves down between Pavel's legs, and Pavel cries out like he hasn't been touched there in years. He hasn't, not like this, not like it might be the last time.  
  
Looking at each other while they're like this would be too much, so Hikaru turns Pavel onto his hands and knees and takes him from behind, holding him tight around his middle as he snaps his hips, Pavel rocking back to meet every thrust, moaning in one continuous wail. The first time they fucked it was like this: frantic, pre-mission, Hikaru actually drooling onto Pavel's shoulder at the feeling of being inside him. Still, for all the sharp angles and harsh breathing, Hikaru's touch is so tender when his hand wraps around Pavel's cock, worshipful as he strokes him.  
  
“Break me,” Pavel cries, pressing his forehead to the mattress, his whole body jerking back, desperate to feel more of Hikaru inside him. “Make me break,” he says. It should have come out in Russian, usually does, but maybe he wanted Hikaru to hear it this time.  
  
Hikaru does as Pavel asked, breaking him open with the orgasm he coaxes from him, stroking and fucking him through it. Pavel cries against the mattress and lets himself go limp, Hikaru supporting his hips with both hands now.  
  
“Baby,” Hikaru says, the word coming out hoarsely, making him sound as if he's been broken open, too. “Pavel, baby, God.”  
  
Hikaru speaks his native language during sex, too: pained endearments, sweet nonsense. One hand roams over Pavel's back, and Pavel knows he's trying to distract himself by touching Pavel's sweaty skin, to make himself last a little longer.  
  
“Please,” Pavel says, because he needs Hikaru to hold him now. Hikaru groans, both hands flattening on the mattress, framing Pavel's head as he arches and pushes his come in as deep as he can. Pavel's eyes slide shut, the sensation of fullness thickening with Hikaru's release. It's such an odd thing to be so satisfied by, those fat drops that leak from him when Hikaru pulls out.  
  
They regard each other inside a nest of blankets the way they did on that first Christmas night that they spent together in this bed. Hikaru touches Pavel's face this time, Pavel too tired to move, his eyes fluttering shut when Hikaru's fingers brush their corners dry.  
  
“You never stopped being a soldier,” Pavel says, thinking of Hikaru with his fencing club kids, rising at the crack of dawn on the day of their tournaments to make organic smoothies and stare out at the garden.  
  
“Neither did you,” Hikaru says. Pavel scoffs.  
  
“No. I never was one.”  
  
“Pavel.”  
  
“I did some brave things when I was young,” Pavel says. “I saved you, that day.”  
  
“That first day,” Hikaru says.  
  
“It was a lot to live up to, maybe.”  
  
Hikaru closes his eyes and laughs a little, sadly. He leans up on his elbow and presses his lips to Pavel's ear.  
  
“You saved me that first day, and every day,” Hikaru says. “Every day.”  
  
Pavel doesn't sleep, just holds Hikaru, who is heavy in his arms, snoring. He always sleeps well after good sex. The alarm goes off before the sun comes up.  
  
“I'll be back in time for Christmas,” Hikaru says when they're saying goodbye at the front door, Hikaru in his old uniform, Pavel in bare feet, his robe open around his t-shirt and boxers.  
  
“Don't worry about that,” Pavel says. “About me. Don't.”  
  
“I never do,” Hikaru says, and he winks. He kisses Pavel's nose and turns around fast, hurrying down the front walk like he's taking off a band-aid. Pavel considers watching him get into the hovercraft and speeding down the road, then goes into the house, leaning against the closed door and just listening to the sound of Hikaru going away. The house looks back at him like he's a stranger. He walks into the kitchen and washes the dishes from dinner. The window over the sink steams up, and Pavel looks at Hikaru's garden, trying not to think about where he is on the road, how far from the station, what the chances of calling him back before he beams up are. He thinks about which vegetables need harvesting, which trees should be picked. It will be cold soon.  
  
*  
  
By the first of December, there is no word from the Federation on the status of Kirk's efforts. It's all top secret anyway. Pavel had a communication from Hikaru on the fifteenth of November that said he had arrived safely on the space station where he'd pick up his shuttle, and not to worry if there was no news from him after that. The planets they're trying to save are remote, hard to reach by non-military means of communication. Pavel has stopped checking his PADD every day.  
  
He gets out the ladder after lunch and puts it in the hall, but doesn't open it under the little door to the attic and doesn't take the boxes full of Christmas decorations down. Hikaru's sister sends him a message asking if they should plan on doing Christmas at his place this year, and does he expect Hikaru home? Pavel leaves it unanswered.  
  
*  
  
Either from the depths of space or well in advance, Hikaru has scheduled the usual delivery of the ten foot tall Siberian pine tree, and it arrives promptly on the third of December. Pavel directs the men who bring it in to install it in its usual place, and when they're gone he sits cross-legged on the floor and stares up at it, amazed that he ever had the energy to put lights and colored balls on something so huge.  
  
At the store that night, picking up a dehydrated chicken breast and a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips, he buys popcorn, thread, and a pack of needles. After dinner he grades papers, drinks coffee, then stays up all night watching the old movie files Hikaru keeps loaded on their data library, stringing popcorn until he has a twenty foot garland that is still only big enough to cover the bottom half of the tree. He ends up falling asleep on the floor and cancels his nine AM class.  
  
*  
  
On the tenth he gets another message from Hikaru's sister, asking if he got her last one. He doesn't want to tell her that Hikaru isn't home yet, because that will make it real, and resolves to answer the message later. He writes one to Hikaru instead.  
  
 _Unpacked all the Christmas boxes today. Where on earth have you put the angel?  
  
Get it? On Earth?  
  
Not that it matters. Maybe I'll dress up and sit on top of the tree until you return. Don't be startled if you come home to find me up there. Also, the plum tree is not doing well this winter, but you can hardly blame me. The garden seems a lot smaller without you, the kitchen a lot bigger. To say nothing of the bed. Where are you? Okay, bye._  
  
He doesn't send it. Hikaru is in the midst of universe-changing negotiations, or anyway Kirk is, Hikaru waiting to fly him away between rocket blasts should Kirk say the wrong thing. Pavel imagines Hikaru bored at a hotel bar, drinking only fizzy water because he's always on call. He goes out to the garden and lifts his glass of vodka, toasting the stars, having one for Hikaru, then another, and another.  
  
He cancels his Friday classes. The students, even the ones who love him and look forward to his lectures, will be happy. It's nearly the holiday break, nobody especially enthusiastic about theoretical physics at this time of year.  
  
*  
  
Hikaru's sister comes by unannounced on the fifteenth. She eyes the popcorn garland that is half falling off the giant tree, the decorations that are spread out all over the floor among the boxes Pavel removed them from before losing momentum, the recycling bin full of empty vodka bottles.  
  
She bursts into tears, afraid that Hikaru has died and Pavel didn't tell her. He comforts her as best he can, with tea and reassurances that he'll tell her as soon as he hears anything.  
  
“You'd probably hear first, anyway,” Pavel says. “You're family, next of kin. I'm not – we're just – he's not my husband.”  
  
“I never understood that,” Hanna says, blowing her nose into the handkerchief Pavel offered.  
  
“I only believed that he really wanted to marry me in hindsight,” Pavel says. “And then it just seemed redundant.”  
  
“What about your family?” Hanna asks. “He said you're not close, but –”  
  
“My mother died when I was three years old,” Pavel says. He hates the way he sounds when he talks about it, almost defensive, as if he expects to be accused of being responsible. He can't seem to change this about himself.  
  
“Oh – I'm so sorry –”  
  
“Yes – she was pregnant. So rare to die from that now, but she did, and the baby as well.”  
  
“And – your father?”  
  
“He's a prominent historian in Moscow. Hikaru bought me a first edition of my father's first book when we had been dating for only a year, for my birthday. Poor Hikaru, such a nice thought, before he knew anything about it.” Pavel forces a laugh, thinking of the vodka in the freezer. “My father and I were like poorly matched roommates.”  
  
“Oh.” Hanna wipes at her eyes again, sniffles. “I'm worried about him. About Hikaru.”  
  
“He'll be fine,” Pavel says. The universe will collapse in on itself if he isn't, and Pavel feels as if he would at least be able to smell such a thing in the air if it were coming.  
  
“So, what are you doing for Christmas?” Hanna asks.  
  
Pavel tells her that he has plans to go visit his father, just to get rid of her. He promises to send gifts for the children. She leaves looking a little disoriented, as if she's still not sure she believes Hikaru is alive somewhere.  
  
*  
  
On the twentieth, it snows, wet flakes that don't stick. Pavel watches it through the kitchen window, his hands paused in mid-scrub on the plate he ate his lunch on. It's a Christmas plate, a pair of candy canes crossed like swords in the middle. Pavel stares at the spot on the patio where he sat six years ago, eating those first candy canes, the first evidence of the Christmas avalanche that was to come. He glances out into the garden, half-expecting to see the ghost of Hikaru distributing mulch, and sees something else instead.  
  
It's a bird, brown and gray and black with white accents, preening itself in the naked Bradford pear. Pavel laughs out loud when he thinks of that old song: how does it go? A partridge – yes! In a pear tree!  
  
It's a sign, he thinks, his eyes getting cloudy. It's Hikaru speaking to him, through Christmas, from far away. When he wipes them clear he notices the little black feather on the bird's head, the sort of whimsical thing that makes Hikaru say that nature must have a sense of humor. Yes, they've seen this bird in the garden before, and Hikaru has told Pavel its name: it's not a partridge, it's a California quail.  
  
The quail stares at Pavel, neither sympathetic nor smug, just a dumb bird that has nothing to do with a Christmas song, or Pavel's loneliness, or the fact that, in five days, the Christmas season will have passed without Hikaru, a dangerous precedent, like a border than can't be crossed back over.  
  
Pavel walks out into the garden and the quail flies away. He goes to the pear tree and inspects it for fruit, and, finding none, hoists himself up onto its sturdiest branch and sits there for awhile.  
  
*  
  
Two days before Christmas, Pavel is awakened by loud knocking on the door. Not allowing himself to wake fully and know that Hikaru would enter without knocking, he flies to the door with a sleepwalker's certainty: Hikaru will be there, smiling, snow-dusted, made young again by his return to space. As Pavel pulls open the door he feels as if he'll be young again, too, as soon as he looks into Hikaru's face while it's lit up with the thrill of flying.  
  
The man standing on Pavel's doorstep is as real to him as a vision of Hikaru from the past would be, and Pavel blinks heavily, willing the vision away. His father shuffles, seemingly embarrassed. His gray hair has gone white in places, and he's gotten very fat.  
  
“This girl, your fellow's sister, she tells me I should come,” Andrei says. The only bag he's carrying is a paper one that appears to be full of liquor bottles.  
  
“Why are you speaking to me in Standard?” Pavel asks, bitterly, in Russian. Andrei shrugs and looks over his shoulder at the driveway, but the taxi is already halfway down the road.  
  
“I thought that was your preferred language,” Andrei says, in Russian now. Pavel scoffs and walks into the house, leaving the door open. It's the warmest invitation to his enter that his father will get, and he takes it, walking inside with a sigh.  
  
“What's all this?” Andrei asks as he wades through the Christmas decorations that are still spread out across the floor. “Have you converted?”  
  
“I'm still an atheist,” Pavel says. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“I didn't know we'd lately been living on the same planet,” Andrei says. He sets the bag of bottles down on the kitchen counter, seems winded just by walking into the house. “I would have come sooner if I had.”  
  
“For what purpose?” Pavel asks. He's already getting the glasses down; drinking is the one thing they have in common. “To laugh at this life I've made for myself? Look, see – you were right about everything. I lost my mind to the military and now I've lost my – husband.” It would be too hard to explain Hikaru to his father without using that word. “Enjoy your victory.”  
  
“Always such an emotional child,” Andrei says, rubbing his hand over his face. Pavel hates how weary his father looks; it makes him feel not older himself but young and small, unguarded.  
  
“One of my many disappointing qualities,” Pavel says. He pulls the bottles from the bag Andrei brought and examines them, scoffing, though they are very good brands, vodkas he hasn't been able to find in years.  
  
“Let's not speak of how we have disappointed each other,” Andrei says. “Your list of disappointments would be very long, I know, and rightfully. I thought perhaps, now that we're both old men, we could have a drink together in peace.”  
  
“Speak for yourself,” Pavel says as he hands his father a glass. “I'm not an old man.”  
  
“Pavel.” Andrei pulls up a stool and sits at the island in the middle of the kitchen, shaking his head. “I have not laid eyes on you since you were nineteen years old. Forgive me for staring. You don't look old, you're right, but you're not young enough not to make me think of – all those years.”  
  
Pavel says nothing. He pulls a stool over to the island sits across from his father, who won't stop staring at him.  
  
“You lost your husband?” Andrei says, softly. “The girl who called me, his sister – she did not tell me this. Have you just found out?”  
  
“I haven't found out anything,” Pavel says. “It's been a month without any word. My point was that you were right. You told me what this life I chose would cost me, and you were right. I've got nothing now, just boxes full of decorations for a party I'm not having.”  
  
“Well.” Andrei drinks and pours more for both of them. “Whatever happens, whatever your decisions in life cost you, if you found a husband whose absence is destroying you, I can tell you, as a truly old man, that you've had the best life could offer you. Whether you've lost it or not. Which is all we can really ask for, yes?”  
  
Pavel doesn't answer. He's never liked acknowledging it when his father is right. After more vodka, Andrei asks to see the garden, and Pavel pretends to grudge the task of showing it to him. Andrei examines each plant that Pavel names, nodding as if in approval. He's the only house guest who has ever seemed to appreciate the neatness of Hikaru's flower beds.  
  
Andrei makes chicken soup while Pavel sleeps on the couch. It was the only meal his father ever knew how to cook, everything else they ate from replicators. Andrei only made it when Pavel was sick, lamenting the whole time that it wasn't as good as the soup Pavel's mother once made for the same occasion. Pavel couldn't remember the taste of his mother's soup, couldn't really remember his mother at all, and secretly loved being sick, for the way his father would set out the saltine crackers and allow him to have ginger ale with his soup, for the way he suddenly seemed to care.  
  
“It's a magnificent tree,” Andrei says when they're sitting on the couch together with soup bowls in their laps, staring up at the tree that Hikaru made sure Pavel would have for Christmas, even if he had nothing else.  
  
“Russian,” Pavel says, gesturing with his spoon. “Imported.”  
  
“Of course,” Andrei says, as if he knew that as soon as he laid eyes on it.  
  
*  
  
On Christmas morning, Pavel wakes up hungover after a long night of drinking, arguing, reminiscing, and some crying. He's in his bed, the lights glowing at the foot board. His bedroom door is open, and he can hear his father snoring loudly from the couch. He sits up, his head pounding, and stares at the empty space where Hikaru should be. His eyes are still puffy from too much emotion the night before, so he only touches Hikaru's pillow briefly before sliding out of bed.  
  
He gets out of bed and walks through the cold, quiet house toward the kitchen, careful not to step on any of the Christmas things that are still laid out across the floor. He never did find the angel. In the kitchen, he starts the coffee, checking out the back window for anything in the pear tree. It's bare, empty, dusted with snow.  
  
He hears a crunching sound and turns, afraid his father has trod on some fragile ornaments, but it's not coming from inside the house. It's from the driveway, something moving over the gravel. Wheels.  
  
Pavel's breath catches high in his chest, a tight bubble that will hurt when it bursts. If Hikaru died on the mission, Kirk would come in person to tell him. He doesn't want to know, but runs for the door anyway, leaping over boxes and tangled lights, balls that roll across the wooden floor as Pavel's footsteps pound across it. On the couch, his father sits up with alarm, choked off in mid-snore.  
  
Kirk's car is there in the driveway, Kirk still behind the wheel, waving as Pavel runs out to Hikaru, who is hurrying up the walkway, dropping his duffel bag as Pavel jumps into his arms. Pavel makes a horribly embarrassing sound of relief as he's lifted off the ground, light as a boy again, as young as he ever was, transformed. Kirk laughs, Andrei comes to the front door with a charmed ' _A-ha!_ ' and Hikaru whispers _baby, baby, oh_ in Pavel's ear.  
  
“Merry Christmas,” Pavel says, maybe stupidly, but he can't think of what else to say as he presses kisses to Hikaru's neck. Kirk is getting out of the car, wielding a bag of take out as if in apology for stealing Hikaru away, introducing himself to Andrei. Pavel doesn't care about any of it, anything but the solid shape of Hikaru between his thighs.  
  
“I told you I'd be back in time,” Hikaru says when Pavel finally pulls back to look into his eyes, holding Hikaru's face in both hands.  
  
“I knew you would be,” Pavel says. It's so easy to say so now. Hikaru's breath smells like mint, as if he actually worried about what Pavel would taste on his mouth when they kissed again.  
  
“Yeah? You knew?”  
  
“Mmm. A bird told me.”  
  
Pavel pulls Hikaru inside as Hikaru uses his free hand to shake with Andrei. Kirk is already in the middle of a breathless narrative about the mission that will surely last through breakfast, which smells good, like cinnamon and sausage, maybe biscuits. Hikaru laughs fondly at the popcorn garland while Pavel clears a pathway through the forest of Christmas decorations on the floor. Everyone is talking at once, and Pavel's mind is racing: he'll have to put on music, set out the Christmas place mats, light some candles, locate wood for a fire –  
  
“C'mere,” Hikaru says as he drops into a seat at the kitchen table, Andrei and Kirk spreading out the food. Pavel rushes over, a candle in one hand and a candy cane plate in the other. Hikaru pulls him into his lap and takes both things from his hands, placing them on the table. He wraps his arms around Pavel and hugs him hard, moaning as if the smell of him is almost too much.  
  
“I like what you've done with Christmas this year,” Hikaru says, looking over his shoulder at the mess. “Freestyle.”  
  
“Bastard,” Pavel says, laughing when Hikaru kisses his neck.  
  
“I'm serious!” Hikaru says. “It's avant garde. It works.”  
  
“Best Christmas ever!” Kirk says in agreement, hoisting a bottle of champagne from the bag of take out. Andrei laughs and shakes his head in disbelief, winking at Pavel. Hikaru can't seem to stop kissing Pavel's curls, and Pavel wonders how he'll manage to eat. Pavel lets out his breath and accepts a glass of champagne when his father passes it to him. It's not how he envisioned his holiday, his life, his happiness, except that Hikaru's arms are around him again. Whatever else comes, Pavel will accept.  
  
Five days from now, Hikaru will help him pack up the decorations, but they'll leave the tree in the living room past the new year, the single popcorn garland dangling from its bottom branches, and Pavel will admire it as he dozes against Hikaru's chest: just a tree before, transformed into a whole holiday by the heartbeat that will lull him to sleep.


End file.
